Supervisors to Take Final Vote on Garage Legislation Tomorrow

After approving the legislation on first reading by a 7-2 vote on
February 9, the supervisors voted on February 23 to continue the measure until tomorrow. Supervisor Bevan Dufty, whose vote would be crucial to override a
potential veto from the Mayor, has wavered in his position on the legislation, saying the measure moved through the legislative
process too quickly for him and his constituents to give it a close enough look.

If the purpose of this law is to prevent evictions of tenants to make space for garages, as I read recently, then wouldn’t a simpler method of doing that be to not approve any permits for garage construction in a building where a no-fault eviction has occurred within a certain period of time?

Much like condo conversion is not allowed in a building that has been Ellis’ed?

Otherwise banning the construction of a garage in a building where there have been no evictions, or in a new build, is simply going to mean more parking on the street which surely is not the intent here? People are going to park somewhere and isn’t it better that’s off-street than on-street?

http://www.livablestreets.com/people/murphstahoe John Murphy

JohnB in order to put in a garage, you need to put in a curb cut. Optimally, you will remove one spot from the curb and add one off street. However, depending on where the curb cut is, you often end up destroying 2 on street spots to add one (private) off street spot. And then you have the case of my neighbor, who uses his “offstreet parking space” to park his crap, and he parks his car on the street.

patrick

When public parking is converted to private parking you are taking a space that can be used by anybody and converting it to a space that can only be used by 1 person (or a very small group of people). The city is also still required to maintain the road, that has now been converted into a private. In a neighborhood with preferential parking or meters, the city is also giving up revenue in perpetuity. The city gets very little in return, certainly nowhere near the value of what has been given up.

http://www.livablestreets.com/people/fourmajor Stuart Matthews

Dufty is my supervisor, and I’ve emailed him urging him to support this legislation.

http://www.livablestreets.com/people/Jamison Jamison Wieser

The City doesn’t just loose a space or two of public parking and associated revenue to allow garages or the additional housing units that could be built in the garage. Plenty of garage spaces could alternatively be turned into storefronts bringing in extra sales tax revenue for the city.

JohnB

A curb cut can take out a street parking place, it’s true.

But not all garages contain only one parking space. Some in my neighborhood are large enough to house voting locations at election time, with capacity for anything up to 12 cars.

That’s what irks me about this proposal. If we are serious about getting car off the street, then let’s not ban the most obvious way of removing them.

While if this is really an anti-eviction measure, and not a transit measure, then let’s ban permits for garages for any building where there has been a no-fault eviction.

As for storing crap in a garage and still parking on the street, well, exactly what kind of law could anyone pass to force people with garages to park in them?

Robo

The city needs to start collecting real money for the conversion of a public parking space to a private driveway. Using the average price of leasing a space spread out over, say 30-50 years, we should be collecting between $50K-$100K for every curb cut permit.
I’m also shocked and appalled that the preservationist community has done almost nothing to stop the architectural disaster created by adding a garage door to an historic property.
“Driveways” also make the sidewalk a more dangerous place, and make building facades more sidewalk-unfriendly by destroying front gardens, removing street trees, and adding the temptation to park cars in the pedestrian space.
We don’t need any more cars or garages, but we do need more housing.

http://www.livablestreets.com/people/murphstahoe John Murphy

“As for storing crap in a garage and still parking on the street, well, exactly what kind of law could anyone pass to force people with garages to park in them?”